Category Archives: Anatomy

Tonight! Observatory! Hope to see you there!

The Morton Skull Collection: Race, Science, and America’s Unburied Dead
An illustrated lecture and book signing with professor Ann Fabian
Date: Monday, February 21st
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5

When Philadelphia doctor Samuel George Morton died in 1851 he left behind collection of more than a thousand human skulls. Not the grisly leftovers of botched operations, but the fruit of 20 years’ work gathering up human remains from around the world. Friends sent Morton heads from Peru, Cuba, Mexico, and Liberia, from almshouses in Pennsylvania, swamps in Florida, beaches in Hawaii, gallows in Indonesia, tombs in Egypt, and battlefields in Texas. Naturalists like Morton collected plants and animals, but trafficking in human remains was something strange and different. Morton was sure that human skulls held clues to the riddles of race that troubled his generation. Were human beings all one species? After measuring skulls, Morton thought not.

In her new book The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America's Unburied Dead, professor Ann Fabian details the story of Morton's collection of skulls; in the process, she not only details Morton's problematic and flawed ideas about race and science, but also the stories behind the individual skulls comprising the Morton Skull collection, the remnants of which now reside in the storerooms of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Whose skulls were these? How did they get to Philadelphia? And what has happened to this great collection of heads?

Tonight, join Morbid Anatomy and Professor Ann Fabian for an illustrated lecture based on the contents of Fabian's new book The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America's Unburied Dead. Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing.

Ann Fabian is a Professor of History and American Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, where she recently completed a term as dean of humanities. She has published books on gambling and personal narratives, and written about the bodybuilding publisher Bernarr Macfadden, the ancient remains of Kennewick Man, and the dead bodies left floating in flooded New Orleans. She is working on a new book about ruins. The School for Advanced Research, the American Antiquarian Society, and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation supported her research on The Skull Collectors: Race, Science, and America's Unburied Dead. She is pleased to talk about this curious business.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

I have always loved the music of Carl Orff's scenic cantata Carmina Burana, but until I saw the above video clip on the Cosmodromium Blog, I had no idea that the music was only a small part of Orff's overall theatrical conception, or the fascinating story of the source material which inspired the piece.

Carl Orff's Carmina Burana was completed in 1936 and premiered to great acclaim in Nazi-era Frankfurt in 1937; it was based on a manuscript of 254 medieval poems and dramatic texts written by students and clergy--many with a decidedly satirical tone towards the Catholic Church--that was uncovered at a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria in 1803.

The poems are mainly songs of morals and mockery, love songs, and drinking and gaming songs with additional songs of mourning, as well as "a satire, and two educational stories about the names of animals..." Within the collection are also descriptions of a raucous medieval paradise in which "the rules of priesthood include sleeping in, eating heavy food and drinking rich wine, and regularly playing dice games."

Carl Orff 's original conception of the staged Carmina Burana (as so provocatively shown above) included elements of dance, masks and costume, set design, and dramatic acting in a kind of theatrical gestalt he termed "Theatrum Mundi," a theatrical conception in which music, movement, and speech were all equal and essential pieces of a whole.

The movement you see above--drawn from a 1975 version Carmina Burana directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle--is entitled "O Fortuna" ("Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi"); it is the best known segment of Carmina Burana and it both begins and ends the piece. Lyrics follow, in English translation from Wikepedia:

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
always waxing
or waning;
detestable life
now difficult
and then easy
deceive a sharp mind;
poverty
power
it melts them like ice.

Fate—monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
stand malevolent,
vain health
always dissolves,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through trickery,
my bare back
I bring to your villainy.

Fate, in health
and in virtue,
is now against me,
affection
and defeat
always enslaved.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating string;
since Fate
strikes down the strong,
everyone weep with me!

You can find out more about this amazing performance--directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle for Munchner Rundfunkorchester Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and conducted by Kurt Eichhorn in West Germany--here and can purchase a copy by clicking here. You can watch much of the production--albeit in pixelated form--by clicking here.

Information via Wikipedia, 1 and 2; clip via Cosmodromium.

In Mexico there is a cult that is rapidly growing--the cult of Saint Death. This female grim reaper, considered a saint by followers but Satanic by the Catholic Church, is worshipped by people whose lives are filled with danger and/or violence--criminals, gang members, transvestites, sick people, drug addicts, and families living in rough neighborhoods. Eva Aridjis' documentary film La Santa Muerte examines the origins of the cult and takes us on a tour of the altars, jails, and neighborhoods in Mexico where the saint's most devoted followers can be found.

Morbid Anatomy is extremely excited to announce a screening of the film "La Santa Muerte" ("Saint Death") followed by a moderated Q and A with Eva Aridjis, the film's director.

The event will take place this Thursday, February 24th at 8:00 PM; If interested, we suggest you arrive early, as this event looks poised to sell out.

Full details follow; hope to see you there!

"La Santa Muerte" ("Saint Death") Film Screening
A screening of the documentary film "La Santa Muerte" ("Saint Death") with the film's director Eva Aridjis
Date: Thursday, February 24th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5
Presented by Morbid Anatomy

In Mexico there is a cult that is rapidly growing--the cult of Saint Death. This female grim reaper, considered a saint by followers but Satanic by the Catholic Church, is worshipped by people whose lives are filled with danger and/or violence--criminals, gang members, transvestites, sick people, drug addicts, and families living in rough neighborhoods. Eva Aridjis' documentary film La Santa Muerte examines the origins of the cult and takes us on a tour of the altars, jails, and neighborhoods in Mexico where the saint's most devoted followers can be found.

Tonight, join Morbid Anatomy and Observatory for a screening of the film in its entirety. The film's director, Eva Aridjis, will be on hand to introduce the film and to answer questions.

Eva S. Aridjis is a Mexican filmmaker born in Holland. She studied Comparative Literature at Princeton University and received an MFA in Film and TV at New York University (1996–2001) where she produced a number of short films including Taxidermy: The Art of Imitating Life" and "Billy Twist", both of which played at the Sundance Film Festival and dozens of other festivals around the world. An activist for many of Mexico City's street children, in 2003 she made the film "Niños de la Calle" ("Children of the Street") to bring attention to the epidemic. Eva wrote and directed her first narrative feature film entitled The Favor, starring Frank Wood and Ryan Donowho, in 2004. Aridjis's second feature documentary, about a Mexican religious cult, is entitled "La Santa Muerte" ("Saint Death") and is narrated by Gael García Bernal. "La Santa Muerte" premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival in 2007 and has screened at festivals all over the US, Latin America, and Europe. Aridjis is currently teaching Screenwriting in the Graduate Film department at New York University and preparing her next narrative feature.

You can find out more about this event on the Observatory website by clicking here and can can access the event on Facebook here. You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library (more on that here)--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Japanese graphic designer and illustrator, Wataru Yoshida created these posters to “show a pure fascination for the mysterious and delicate qualities of the Mammal’s anatomy.“  They represent a mock exhibition called “The Composition of Mammals,” which features displays of taxidermy and animal skulls. Wataru says, “I tried to visually explain the contests of the show, by incorporating mu diagram-like illustrations of bone structures and photographs that I took and edited myself.”

The series was created for Wataru’s graduation project at the Tama Art University in Tokyo.

I love the photography, illustration, and design of each poster.  Perfect.

View more of Wataru’s incredibly detailed work on his portfolio site, wataru-yoshida.com/wordpress.

[spotted by a Street Anatomy fan via Fubiz]

Intricate bone sculptures and jewelry by Ukraine-based artist, Aleksandr Tivodar.  I especially love the spine on the ring above.

View all of Aleksanr’s work on his portfolio site, tivodar.com.

I’m starting to listen to An Horse (thanks Elyse!) and came across their CD album artwork which happens to be pretty awesome. Check out their music and videos here!